I'll start off with the questions, and give the background below:
Questions
Is there a way to cultivate the starter so it goes toward an odor of that nice yogurt-like quality?
Does that odor indicate how well the starter will leaven and perform?
Can you tell how a starter will behave from its odor?
Does the quality of the starter affect the crumb and density of a loaf? Or does that have more to do with temperature and time for fermentation?
I made my own starter and have been baking with it for about eight months. I usually discard about ninety percent of the starter after every feeding session. It at least doubles in volume about 10 hours after each feeding of 75g water and 75g flour (50/50 AP/Rye). It's very consistent.
The smell before it has fully doubled is usually of overripe fruit with a bit of acidity. It's normally fermenting at around 20C. If I let it collapse, then it takes on the acetic/nail polish remover odor.
When I make bread with it (I normally follow the Tartine country loaf method), the dough smells kind of warm and human (not sure how else to describe it). It's not unpleasant, but I find it weird. Also, during the bulk ferment and final proofing, the dough does not increase in volume very much (nowhere near the 30% volume growth outlined in Tartine), though I typically get a pretty good oven spring and open crumb.
I for the first time smelled someone else's starter and it was so much nicer than mine. It had the sweet milky/yogurt-like odors I hear people talk about. It was really nice. I also tasted bread made with the starter and noticed how much softer the crumb was than my bread. While I like the mild sour flavour of my bread, it is normally quite dense and chewy. It's great for toast and spreads, but way too tough for sandwiches. I'm wondering if that's because of my starter.
Thanks in advance!
I do pretty much what you do to get the starter going in terms of hydration, etc. After 14 days or so, mine has a beer-like odor. I start adding a bit more spring water, as a thinner, flavorful starter seems to work for me in terms of a more open crumb.
A thinner, flavorful starter-- but does it have a lot of bubbles? Is it rising and falling as a thicker starter would? I've got a thinner starter at the moment and I'm worried it isn't potent enough.
Thanks! Do you find that the quality/state of the starter when you make the levain affects the texture of the crumb?
Hello likejehu,
I'm not an expert by any means but here's how I do my starter maintenance. Up front I'll tell you that my starter smells sour, I don't know if I'd say yogurt like. It's definitely fermenting. I keep mine in the fridge mostly, so I could really get away with feeding it about every 3 weeks, but I usually bake at least once a week and I typically feed it then. After adding what I need to the bread dough I'm making (about 1/3 cup) I get rid of everything but 1/2 cup. Then I add about 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1/3 cup warm tap water ( the flour and water are both about 72 to 75 grams each). I generally let the starter sit out about 6 hours to rise and ferment before sticking it back in the fridge. Sometimes after a week or so, the starter has a grayish blue liquid on top of it. I believe that this is alcohol caused by the fermentation process. I just stir it in before using it, but it could be poured off. I make no knead bread so my dough is kind of wet. I let my dough do it's first proof for about 9 hours (it's also gone as long as 12 hours when I just couldn't get to it sooner), generally overnight. The bread I've been making lately has been New York Rye. My recipe: 2 cups warm water 1/3 cup starter, 1-1/2 tsp sea salt, 1 tbsp caraway seeds, 2/3 cup rye flour and about 4 cups of whatever combination of whole wheat and unbleached all-purpose flour that I feel at the time (I use the Easy Bake method I've linked you to below). With this recipe, my dough has been tripling in volume in 8 to 9 hours. Then, I empty it out on a floured surface and fold it a few times and put it in a proofing basket/vessel for another hour. About 15 minutes into that final proofing I place my cooking vessel (a cast iron dutch oven with lid) into my oven and set the temperature to setting to 500 degrees. So the oven and the dutch oven get to heat up for 45 minutes before I need them. Then I dump my proofed dough into the into the hot dutch oven and bake it for 15 minutes with the lid on and then another 20 to 25 minutes with the lid off. I get a nice spring, a nice crust, and a nice crumb. Here are two links that I believe will help you a lot. They certainly helped me. The links are to 2 different spots on a site called Breadtopia. Breadtopia is a great site.
Starter Maintenance , Easy Bake Bread method. I hope this was helpful.
Good luck,
Pete